For several centuries American folklore has held that on Christmas Eve night, one man pulled by a team of flying reindeer has delivered presents springing forth from a single sack to all the good little children of the world. Against all odds, people have bought in. It’s not turning water into wine or parting the Red Sea, but Santa Claus sure has a following.
The cult of Santa has infiltrated much of the Western population, but instead of sparking 60 Minutes specials and court prosecutions, it’s promoted by ad agencies, the state and parents. And it’s powerful. Straight from the days when folklore was king, Santa Claus packs as much meaning as any ancient story. Just ask the experts, who have seen through Santa’s shtick for years.
UCSC classics professor Mary-Kay Gamel has made a name for herself analyzing Greek drama. Rife with complexes and characters who don’t listen to their oracles, Greek myth finds a trusty plot device in theoxeny—the god coming down to earth.
“In the eighth book of Ovid there’s the myth of Baucis and Philemon,” says Gamel. “Jupiter and Saturn come down and ask for hospitality of all these villagers and are denied, but Baucis and Philemon are a pious couple who let them in even though they’re poor.”
In gratitude, their house is turned into a temple while their neighbors drown.
Narratives of judgment are classic and plentiful, and Santa Claus is part of one that restates that hospitality is a virtue, and that those cookies and milk by the fireplace probably shouldn’t be forgotten. The reward is that fancy new iPad.
The theoxeny of Santa has clear connections to earlier myths found in Nordic, classical and biblical systems. From the pious Greek St. Nicholas of Myra (a bishop who distributed gifts to the needy) to the randy satyr Silenus (the booze-loving tutor of Dionysus who stumbled into King Midas’ palace) and all the way down through Dutch Sinterklaas (who rode over rooftops on Dec. 6 on a white horse), he’s a jolly composite of several theological traditions. And he happens to fit nicely into our political economic system.
The Magical Gift-Giving Tour
Jack Santino, professor in the Department of Popular Culture at Bowling Green University and the current Tocqueville-Fulbright Distinguished Chair at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, has done extensive research into holidays and public ritual for the past 30 years. He brings up Santa’s well-known connection to capitalism, which thrives in the season of giving.
“Christmas is the most important economic period of the year for our U.S capitalistic society,” Santino writes in an email. “And as we all know, many businesses depend on the Christmas trade for their continued existence. Santa magically creating and distributing gifts both enacts this reality and masks it.”
So the economy’s wellbeing is in the hands of a myth?
“I wouldn’t call it a myth, exactly,” continues Santino. “Santa Claus is unusual—the story is told as truth to children, but presumably not believed in by adults. That said, watch a few Christmas movies and see how often the story involves adults coming to believe in Santa. Santa Claus is a story grown-ups invented out of the many standards of tradition (St. Nicholas, pre-Christian winter figures and gods, other gift-bearers) that we tell children is true and then tell ourselves, imaginatively, it is true.”
In other words Santa, presumably a construct created for kids, has enormous relevance to adults. Enter the Rev. Cordelia Strandskov of First Congressional Church of Santa Cruz, childhood receiver of a single stocking worth of gifts every Christmas and benevolent Santa’s helper to a younger sister. Rev. Strandskov’s Christmas is about the biblical birth of Christ, but Santa is an aside that doesn’t detract from her message.
“The spiritual side of Santa is this idea that he gives you a gift that celebrates you as a child, even if you are sometimes naughty and imperfect,” says Strandskov. “If I were explaining it to Sunday school I’d say that we don’t always deserve the gifts we get, but we get them out of love. God loves us anyway, and the presents are symbolic of the Christ child’s gift to us.”
Santa Claus is attached to Dec. 25, which in the beginning was strictly a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Since then the mainstream has picked up on a Christmas minus Jesus. A non-denominational Santa Claus and universal thumbs-up towards presents are traditions that can be performed on television shows and in front of courthouses without any backlash. However, not all Christians are thrilled with the co-opting of their holiday, and Strandskov admits she wouldn’t be surprised if some families have evicted Santa as a snake in the grass, a distraction from religious values.
But the minister preaches appropriation the same as did Pope Julius I, who in the year 350 declared the date of Christ’s birth to coincide with the festivals of pagan Romans, and the pill of conversion was swallowed that much easier knowing the festivals wouldn’t be taken away. So believing in an unexplainable being as a child is a good transition to believing in an unexplainable being as an adult, and the faithful get to keep their sense of mystery.
“It’s good practice for the faith that they might be asked in the future to have in Christianity,” Strandskov says. “There’s the mystery of how it can happen, and we have to have faith that this man flies down our chimneys and gives presents to all the children of the world in one night. How he does it is the mystery.”
Guilt Fee
So Santa knows when you’ve been bad or good, and the Christian God says the very hairs of your head are all numbered. The parallels come together in an intrinsic battle between good and evil, rewarded by presents and salvation or punished by eternal damnation. And coal is pretty much damnation.
Judgment has been passed off to an omnipotent figure who knows what you’ve done even if fellow mortals don’t—a holiday guilt trip springing from Judeo-Christian philosophical innovations.
“The ancient classical world was not entirely clear on conscience,” says Gamel. “They had the idea that if you don’t get caught there is no sin—a shame culture. Guilt is more typical of Judaism and Christianity, which have this idea of God, where he’s there all the time, all-knowing. Maybe the Greeks wouldn’t like Santa Claus.”
Today the world of the ancient Greeks is seen through a lens of meddling gods navigating through politics and private agendas, chasing maidens like it was going out of style and conspiring against humans, all reflections for sets of cultural values seen throughout a tumultuous rise and fall. In 1,000 years, what will our stories reflect?
“Myths give us ways to think about the world, perhaps primarily justifying the ways things are, but also as alternatives to what we have,” says Gamel. “I’d say Santa Claus simultaneously suggests that presents—the material proof of love—are good, but also questions whether the family connection for presents is necessary. Perhaps a further-away figure can understand whether we’re ‘naughty or nice’ better than those who are closer.”
It’s For The Children
Santino confirms the religious vein that flows through the Santa story and brings up additional modern cultural references.
“Santa reinforces the nuclear family structure, with an emphasis on children,” Santino says. “He leaves the gifts under the tree, for the kids. How many photographs are taken of them tearing into their Christmas gifts? And how many of the child sitting on the department store Santa’s lap? Is it a coincidence that the sacred symbol of Christmas is a divine child, also represented as a nuclear family?”
In addition to the notion “children are good,” Santino observes that the Santa tradition reinforces socially affirming concepts of generosity, charity and peace on earth. Santa is an idealization of us, and is the harbinger of what we’re reaching for. It’s nothing but a story, but it’s still something to believe in—and if the belief is missing, the practice is strong enough to continue anyway.
“Do you give presents?” Gamel asks in the middle of our conversation.
Most people with a Sinterklaas figure in their consciousness do.
“I don’t like to, but I feel like I should,” Gamel continues. “So there is a certain belief system at work here.”
The holiday and the man have been adapting for hundreds of years. The spending and the giving are patterns of Western societal behavior reflected in myth, and while the chorus laments the passing of the holiday spirit into the gutters of materialism, the story of Santa has been evolving since Christmas incorporated the traditions of sun-worshiping Gaels and a Greek saint gave gifts to the poor. It is what societies make it, but it’s also helping to make society.
Thus the audience enacts the performance of culture. But that’s enough deep stuff for now. It’s time to go set out some milk and cookies, because you never know who’s going to come calling.
